D8

“Let me call you back in a few minutes, okay?”

“Okay. Bye.”

As soon as she hung up, Terrence sighed and threw his phone on the plastic wrapped couch. Hands on his waist, he took his time examining the empty white walled apartment he had just moved into. Walking past the furniture, he slid the floor to ceiling doors apart and admired the view of the evening sky’s reflection on the man-made lake across the streets adjacent to his apartment block.

“Something new,” he said to himself. He had just got accepted in a new firm and had to move halfway across the country to the bustling city. Though he was to start the following week, he preferred to get there a bit earlier to get the lay of the land and settle in before he started.

After setting up his microwave, he heated some frozen dinner he bought at the shop on the ground floor and sat in silence as he ate. The whole time he was wondering what it would be like to work in a new city. He hadn’t travelled much in the fifteen years he had worked, only moving to one more auditing firm before this new one, and the thought of being in unfamiliar territory made him shudder.

“It’ll be worth it,” he said again. Just then, the lights disappeared, leaving his phone as the only source of light in the room.

“Oh, come on,” he grumbled, “day one?”

He took his phone to make his way to the door, eager to complain to the caretaker, but stopped when he heard a loud thud. He froze at the door, his handshaking on the handle when he heard a low moaning sound, like someone breathing, followed by a shuffle of footsteps down the stairs.

“I thought I was the only one on this floor,” he whispered. His ear on the door, he waited to hear anything else. The monotone drone of his fridge along with the room filling up with bright lights made him jump. He smiled at himself as he returned his phone to the charger.

“Day one. I’m living next to a ghost,” he said to himself while chuckling. He then made his bed and plopped onto it, blacking out in a few minutes…

The wind blew across his face in his convertible car, his left arm on his girlfriend’s’ thigh as she giggled in glee. They drove along the coast for about two hours, wanting to spend time with each other before he moved. Just then, the truck he had not seen hooted at him, forcing him to brake suddenly before it rammed into him with a loud thump…

He sat up in his bed, wondering what had just happened. He sighed as he saw the time. 3 a.m. he lay back on his bed in the hopes of getting back to the coast, but the loud thumping sound came again. He sat very still, barely breathing and staring into the darkness. The thumping sound came again, followed by what sounded like a nail across the tiled floors.

He bit his teeth and clenched his fist at the sound, only easing up when it stopped at the wall behind his back. He knelt on the bed and pressed his ear at the wall. He jumped when he heard a low growl, and this prompted a shuffle of footsteps, followed by a loud bang on his door.

“What the fuck is that?” he asked himself. He puffed his chest out and proceeded to the front door, counting to three before he could open it.

All he saw was the fluorescent lighting in the corridor, the door across his own and the stairwell.

“Was I imagining all of this?” he asked himself as he closed his won door. He walked in the dimly moonlit living room to close the curtains behind the sheer blinds. However, he froze in his tracks, eyes popping out and breathing rapidly when he saw a figure, draped in a hoodie and mask and standing under a street lamp, staring right into his apartment. The man stood there for some time, looking through his door, then turned and went away, after which Terrence ran back to his room and covered himself in his blankets, hoping to get this living nightmare over with.

***

“And he just stood there?” the voice on the other end of his phone asked him.

“I swear, Carla,” he said as he gobbled down his cereal, “he was just looking into my house.”

“Did he see you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I told you not to pick that place. Didn’t I tell you not to? Now see your life, sharing an apartment with thieves,” she scoffed, making him chuckle a bit.

“I’m going to have a word with the caretaker. He should know what happened here.”

“Or, and I’m just saying…”

“We’ve had this discussion before,” he said with a dismissive tone.

“Okay, okay. But this wouldn’t happen if you accepted the company’s offer.”

“I’ve stayed in one place too long, Carla. There’s more to the world than one place all the time,” Terrence said, nodding in self-assurance.

“Okay then. But make sure you check whatever the hell is going on there.”

“Will do. I’ll call you later,” he said as he hung up. After a quick shower, he put on a white shirt with brown pants and black sandals and walked out of his apartment. He got to the gate of the complex and stood underneath the same lamp post that the man from last night had stood. Leaning on it, he crossed his arms and looked into his living room.

“Even with the sheers, he couldn’t have seen me,” he told himself as he peered into his room. He wondered what the man could have wanted in there to begin with.

“Maybe he’s just a tenant,” he said as he left the complex and walked to a nearby coffee shop. He ordered his usual white with two spoons of sugar and a bun, relaxing as he perused the paper. His eyes skimmed through the usual politics, and he would have skipped to the sports section had the headline not caught his attention.

“WHERE IS PURITY?”

“Six months later,” the excerpt read, “the whereabouts of Ms. Purity Kivananga still remain a mystery. Last seen at her lavish Lakeview Apartments, she was rumored to have gone out with her friends before never being seen again.”

“Lakeview?” Terrence asked, finishing the statement in his head.

‘She lived in our complex?’

 He shook his head when he saw her picture. She seemed full of life, with pearly white teeth brightening up the frame, flowing black hair that sported a pink clip on the right side, as well as a golden heart-shaped necklace.

“How many of these girls are going to end up missing?” he asked himself as he turned the page, Purity’s disappearance being a dark cloud in an otherwise bright day. After going through the rest of the paper, he folded it neatly and walked across the road to the lake. He walked past many people walking their dogs, others playing with their children and some like him, just walking around.

Just then, he spotted his caretaker, a tall lean gentleman with drooping shoulders, across the water body on his way back to the complex. He hastened his pace just in time to reach him as he got to the gate.

“Excuse me?” he said as the caretaker turned around. His drooping eyelids, ashen face and dry lips did very little to convince people of his rather warm and friendly character.

“Hello, I’m Terrence. I just moved in…”

“Ah, you’re the new guy,” he spoke slowly, a smile breaking out on his face, “how can I help you?”

“Yes, I have a complaint.”

“Oh, what is it?” the caretaker asked, his face a genuine look of concern.

“Well, last night, I heard some sounds in the unit next to mine. like there wass someone banging something in there or something. Then last night, just at that gate, I saw a man looking through my doors.”

The caretaker’s face did not break as he spoke, and when Terrence finished explaining, he merely nodded.

“I see,” he said, “what floor are you on again?”

“Fourth floor, D8,” Terrence said. The caretaker gulped, looked down and asked Terrence to follow him to his quarters.

“You said D8?”

“Yes. I heard some strange sounds and saw a man looking into my apartment,” Terrence said, watching him unlock the CCTV control room, where he was met by an array of monitors.

“I’ll look into it, sir,” he said, “I’ll let you know what I find.”

“You have cameras in the rooms?” Terrence asked, a bit mortified.

“No, just the common spaces. Give me till the end of the day, and I will let you know what I find,” the caretaker said.

“Okay, I’ll come back later in the evening then. I have a few errands to run anyway,” Terrence said as he bade him goodbye.

***

He spent the night dancing in a night club and was on his way back home in an Uber.

“So you live at Lakeview?” the driver asked, eager to break the tense silence.

“Yes. I just moved in,” Terrence replied.

“That’s where that girl lived. Purity, I think,” he said. With that, Terrence leaned forward, resting his arm on the center console.

“You know about that?”

“I dropped her home that day.”

“What?”

“Yes. I spent a good amount of time explaining that to the police. But I don’t believe she went missing. I think she was killed.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, I remember her saying that she was trying to get away from someone who came to town looking for her. She said he had bugged her phone or something, so she left that night with her friends. She hoped that he would have stopped by the time she got home.”

“Did someone else know this? Surely, she could have told someone about it?”

“No idea. After that night, she was never heard from again. Just like those other ones.”

“Other ones?”

“Yes. There have been several disappearances in the past few weeks.”

That statement ushered in a long period of silence that was only broken when he said goodbye to the driver.

“Hallo, sir,” the guard greeted him as he opened the gate for him.

“Hello,” he replied as he smiled.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“What do you mean?”

“Yesterday. You came here and stood under that light for a few minutes. You asked me to not mind you because you were looking at something,” the guard explained. Terrence stared at him, remembering the man from yesterday peering through his window.

“Um, no,” he said, “did I say anything else?”

“You haven’t said much in the six months you’ve lived here, sir,” the guard said.

“Six months? That cant be right, I moved in on Monday,” Terrence said. The guard seemed taken aback, but his face was resolute.

“No, that isn’t right. He! How much have you had to drink?” the guard asked as he laughed, patting Terrence on the back. He merely chuckled awkwardly, shaking his head at the guard’s words.

“Can we talk tomorrow then?” he asked.

“No problem, sir. Have a good night,” the guard said as Terrence went on. He passed by the caretaker’s quarters to find him asleep on his table, the door ajar.

“Hmm,” he said as he went to his room. As he stood by his door, he looked at the one across him for a few minutes before he headed into his own house…

***

The thumping sound woke him up again. He sat up on his bed, heart racing and nerves on edge.

“This again,” he said as he got up, carried a cloth and tiptoed all the way to the room. Luckily the door was open, so he carefully opened it and made his way in. the layout was much like his own, save for the lack of furniture in the living room, the blood stains on the floors and the broken doors. He walked into the bedroom and stared at the bed with crumped sheets.

He squatted and switched on his torch, seeing Purity’s gagged face looking up at him. she tried to scream, but he held the cloth at her nostrils until she passed out, after which he dragged her from underneath and placed her on the bed.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the heart-shaped necklace and put it on her. He then crawled beside her and spooned her, his hand navigating the scars on her body as he whispered in her ear:

“We were meant to be together.”

***